FORMER Rangers defender Berg was confirmed as Blackburn's new manager last night, replacing Steve Kean who was sacked a month earlier.

HENNING BERG says his return to Blackburn feels like a homecoming after he was officially installed as the club's new manager.

Former Rovers defender Berg - who also had a spell with Rangers in 2003/04 - was confirmed as the club's new manager yesterday evening following a month-long search for Steve Kean's successor.

The 43-year-old was part of Blackburn's Premier League title-winning team in 1994/95 and came back for a second playing spell three years on from a £5million switch to Manchester United in 1997, going on to captain the team in their League Cup triumph in 2002.

Asked whether it felt like he was coming home, Berg said: "It does actually. Driving in here to get the papers done was a fantastic feeling - the roads were the same, the weather was the same!

"I've had many, many good memories here. For myself I couldn't be back to a better place.

"It's different now coming in as a manager, of course. But this is a challenge that I really look forward to."

Berg's previous managerial experience came with Lyn Oslo and Lillestrom in his native Norway, where he spent the last year working as a television pundit.

It was in this role that he offered a scathing assessment of Blackburn's owners, Venky's, in the wake of relegation from the Barclays Premier League last term.

In a now widely circulated quote, he said: "There are no real managers with credibility who would accept a job like that," - views he claims the interview process at Rovers alleviated.

"It's been a frustrating time and I looked at it from the outside," Berg explained.

"Now I have spoken to the people inside the club, I know what they're thinking, I know what their ambitions are, I know what they're planning.

"There's no doubt the owners are ambitious. They want to put this club back into the Premier League, they want all the best for this club and I think they've made some important steps.

"They showed it when they put the money in for the players in the summer - Jordan Rhodes, Leon Best, (Danny) Murphy, (Dixon) Etuhu, (Nuno) Gomes.

"They also made changes in the management and I think they've taken good action in the right direction to take this club forward."

Such acquisitions are a large part of the reason he inherits a side fifth in the npower Championship ahead of a first game in charge at Crystal Palace on Saturday, and Berg insists promotion at the first attempt is paramount.

"We want to win promotion - that our goal, that is our only ambition," he added.

"It is the only thing we'll think about and that's the only thing we want to to."